THIS TRINITY CASE

For several days the newspapers have given liberal space to a rather interesting controversy at Trinity College, Hartford. It seems that Dean Edward L. Troxell, in a chapel address, said: "Our duty in college is to disregard the individual and to turn out a Trinity type."

Whereupon Malcolm L. Stephenson, editor of the Trinity Tripod, dared to oppose the suggestion of the dean and made what proved to be the fatal mistake of writing his plea in language that has just the slightest trace of Menckenesque presumption. "We have always thought of college as a spawning ground for individuals," he wrote, "for wrote, "for men who think. Better a radical with a beard and a bomb than a type--a goose-stepper--a man without brains enough or courage enough to declare himself."

Without any ceremony, so the papers have it, the dean dispatched a note to Stephenson informing him that he was suspended for his article which was deemed "prejudicial to good discipline." Certainly a Prussian conception of discipline, one would say. And so Stephenson's fellow students evidently thought, for they presented a petition for the reconsideration of the summary sentence passed upon him. They also secured from other college papers, the CRIMSON among others, copies of editorials wherein student editors opposed their college administration, hoping to convince Dean Troxell that Stephenson's act was as nothing compared to similar instances elsewhere which were greeted with wise tolerance.

But the dean was inexorable, and the faculty passed an equivocal vote upholding freedom of speech but condemning the Tripod utterance as contrary to "the canons of courtesy and good taste."

Upon the strength of these facts, which we believe are correct, we are filled with commiseration for the students of Trinity and for the editor of the Tripod in particular, who appears as a victim of the boldest, kind of injustice and official stupidity. It is not for outsiders to judge of the duty of Trinity College, but Dean Troxell's original statement, when translated into general terms is certainly a debatable one. Most college students in America would probably vote for Stephenson's side of the argument.

But apart from the question of right, Dean Troxell's action is even more reprehensible on grounds of expediency. Even if Stephenson's editorial were a breach of discipline, courtesy, and good taste, as is asserted on quite doubtful grounds, it was extremely unwise to suppress it on that account. Good taste rests upon something universal in men, and when its canons are disregarded in editorial writing such infraction is in itself quite sufficient to nullify the effect of what one says with one's readers. Even if the faculty's contention be granted then, to suspend Stephenson was to do the unnecessary, and, moreover, to make, a martyr of an offender.

This incident, absurd as it must seem to an unprejudiced observer, throws light upon one of the most serious problems of education. Many men who have no special aptitude for understanding and stimulating young minds, enter upon careers as teachers, presumably because they seem to fit nowhere else, and teaching looks easy. As educators they are a follow mockery, and one such pseudo-teacher can do more harm by disgusting young minds with academic pursuits, than ten real scholar-teachers can undo. To judge by the evidence, Trinity College has a dean of this type.